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Soot-choked “black rain" has fallen across multiple districts of Moscow after Ukraine launched its largest-ever drone assault against the Russian capital, scoring a direct hit on a vital energy facility. Close to 200 long-range strike drones targeted the metropolis early on Thursday, overwhelming local air defences and setting the strategic Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya ablaze. As thick columns of dark smoke billowed thousands of feet into the air, residents in the southeastern suburbs and surrounding towns, including Balashikha and Lyubertsy, reported a fine, oily drizzle that coated vehicles, streets, and clothing in a dark, toxic residue. The multi-directional aerial...

Moscow has come under the largest Ukrainian attack since the start of the full-scale war, with close to 200 drones hitting targets around the Russian capital and setting columns of thick smoke billowing high into the sky. Seventeen people were wounded in the Moscow region, according to local governor Andrei Vorobyov. Almost 1,000 drones and four Ukrainian cruise missiles were intercepted and destroyed across the country in 24 hours, Russia's defence ministry was quoted as saying. An oil depot was struck in the southern Rostov region, where one person was killed. Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had once again hit the...

Ukraine is seeking an additional $20 billion in military funding from its allies, Defence ​Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Wednesday at a joint ‌press conference with his Dutch counterpart. A Ukrainian defence source told Reuters last week that Ukraine would make the request on Thursday at a meeting ​of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an alliance of ​more than 50 countries also known as the Ramstein ⁠group that provides financial and military aid for Kyiv. Fedorov ​said that of the nearly $40 billion funding already announced, Ukraine saw $24 ​billion in the supply schedule. He added that Ukraine has been...

French President Emmanuel Macron revealed Tuesday that he had a “difficult” meeting with President Trump the previous evening as the closely watched G7 summit got underway. “Yesterday we had a difficult discussion with President Trump,” Macron told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a group session about Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. The tension is reflective of the strained relationship between Trump and Macron as well as other European leaders, who remain frustrated with the American president over his war with Iran, threats to annex Greenland, and his critiques of Zelensky and Ukraine. “Trump is being his usual self,” a...

More than 80 years after Ukraine’s Dormition Cathedral was razed to its foundation during World War II, the reconstructed holy site was again engulfed in flames on Monday. The cathedral, a popular Christian pilgrimage destination, was struck when a wave of Russian attacks across multiple cities killed 11 people and injured dozens more, the Ukrainian government said. Two drones also struck the historic monastic complex in Kyiv that is home to the cathedral, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a post on social media. Videos verified by The New York Times show fire crew members on tall cranes, spraying...

Ukraine is seeking an additional $20 billion in military funding from its allies to cement what it sees as its ​current battlefield advantage over Russia, a Ukrainian defence source said on Friday. The request will ‌be made next Thursday at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an alliance of more than 50 countries also known as the Ramstein group that provide financial and military aid for ​Kyiv. Russia's advances have slowed this year - effectively grinding to a halt last ​month - as Ukrainian mid-range drone strikes have harmed its supplies and ⁠logistics for the front line. Long-range...

Strongman Vladimir Putin was forced to halt his annual Russia Day showcase in Moscow’s Red Square for the first time in 23 years Friday, after a Ukrainian attack battered key energy targets and sparked massive fires on Russian soil. Kyiv launched drone strikes overnight into Friday on critical Russian energy and transportation points, including the Armiansk Bridge, which connects occupied Crimea with the motherland. The bombing of the bridge “completely paralysed” a key logistical route and destroyed about 50 vehicles carrying fuel and ammunition, according to Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment Da Vinci. Moscow’s centerpiece Russia Day concert was hastily...

The European Union announced it would resume membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova on Monday. “All member states agreed to open the first accession negotiations cluster with Ukraine and Moldova,” EU President Antonio Costa said in a social media post on Friday. The announcement came after the new government in Hungary agreed to drop its longstanding veto against Kyiv. The European Union formally opened entry negotiations with Ukraine back in June 2024, kickstarting a complicated undertaking that usually takes years and involves negotiations on anything from agriculture to the rule of law. Launched as a powerful statement days after Russia’s...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday he had a "positive" conversation with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and praised what he called their readiness to work on a settlement of the Ukraine war in the coming weeks. "A very positive conversation," Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app about the conversation during a stopover in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau. "Grateful for the readiness to work as actively as possible already in the weeks to come to give a boost to diplomacy for ending Russia's war against Ukraine," he wrote.

The leaders of Ukraine and its close European allies - the UK, France and Germany - have set out out five conditions for reaching a "just and lasting" deal to end the war with Russia. In a joint statement after talks in London, Volodymyr Zelensky, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said they would "stand firmly with Ukraine". The five conditions include a stop to the fighting, starting negotiations from the current position in the field as well as "robust" security guarantees for Ukraine. The leaders reiterated the need for the...

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrived on Sunday afternoon in London for talks with the leaders of Britain, Germany and France as Europe considers taking a more active role in peace talks with Russia after more than a year of unsuccessful U.S. mediation. Ukraine and its European allies see a new opening to revive talks that have stalled as Moscow made uncompromising territorial demands and Washington shifted its focus to the war with Iran. They note that Russia’s recent battlefield setbacks and mounting economic strains could make a peace settlement more appealing to the Kremlin, a scenario that is also...

The hall at St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Calgary is packed. Three gigantic, artistically painted wooden Easter eggs dominate the stage. Heavily accented voices rise and fall amid the chatter as attendees nibble on poppyseed cake and other Ukrainian delicacies. No one wears the bright blue-and-yellow of the war's early days, but embroidered vyshyvanky peek from under sweaters and jackets. These are the faithful still committed to Ukraine's cause. They came to hear Michael Bociurkiw — a Canadian journalist of Ukrainian heritage now based in Odesa — deliver a sobering assessment of a war grinding into its fifth year....

Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz for talks in Downing Street on Sunday to discuss support for Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader will visit the UK with the French president and German chancellor after a week of heightened hostilities and Vladimir Putin’s rejection of his proposal of face-to-face talks on Moscow’s war. The three countries meeting the Ukrainian leader are some of Kyiv’s staunchest allies. The UK and France are leading the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process. A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted St...

Russian military vehicles are being painted with vivid stripes to baffle AI systems of Ukrainian-launched drones, experts say. Now the "cloaking" tactic has apparently launched a high-stakes game of hide and seek on the highways of Russian-held territory in Ukraine. Todd E. Humphreys, an aerospace and AI expert at the University of Texas at Austin, agrees the paint tactic may be more effective than many realize. "Dazzle paint pushes the vehicles 'out of distribution' -- they no longer look, to the AI classifier, like the images it was trained on," he told RFE/RL. But any specific paint job would have...

The Republican-led House on Thursday passed a sweeping security package providing new military aid to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia, delivering a sharp rebuke to the Trump administration, who opposed the measure. Eighteen Republicans crossed party lines to support the Democrat-authored legislation in a vote of 226-195. California Rep. Kevin Kiley, an independent who caucuses with Republicans, also supported the legislation. Meanwhile, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was the lone Democratic lawmaker to vote against the bill. House GOP leadership and the vast majority of Republicans opposed the legislation aimed at bolstering Ukraine's defenses amid a surge in Russian missile...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lamented during a Wednesday press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that his country’s war with Russia is no longer top of mind for U.S. officials. “Iran is the No. 1 issue for the United States, and only after that comes Ukraine,” Zelensky said in Kyiv. “Unfortunately, we are in the queue of these wars.” Rutte arrived in Ukraine on an unannounced visit one day after a Russian drone and missile attack killed at least 13 people and injured more than 100. In the United States, members of the House of Representatives are forcing a...

Ukrainian drones on Wednesday attacked St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, on the opening day of an annual economic conference that President Vladimir V. Putin has tried to cultivate into a showcase of a modern and prosperous country. It was the second time in a month that Ukraine had struck a major Russian city before an event important to Mr. Putin, as Kyiv expands a campaign of long-range strikes aimed at inflicting economic damage on Russia and demonstrating its vulnerability to attacks. In early May, Ukrainian forces hit sites in Moscow, including a high-rise apartment building near the city center, days...

Vladimir Putin has suffered a fresh wave of war humiliation amid warnings that his unaffordable conflict with Ukraine is pushing his economy to the brink of collapse. Russia's Finance Ministry and its central bank has projected the government's budget deficit widening to a dangerous level if the Kremlin continues at the current rate of defence expenditure, according to Bloomberg. The stark warning came as Putin suffered further setbacks on the frontline, where the tide of the war is increasingly turning in Ukraine's favour. And authorities in Crimea are urging citizens not to panic amid ongoing petrol shortages with pictures showing...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said he hopes White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will come to Kyiv, Ukraine, for talks in the coming weeks. CBS News’s “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan asked the president whether he had heard from the envoys and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and whether they will ever travel to Kyiv. “Yes, we count on [them] coming to Kyiv,” Zelensky said. “I hope that they will find a possibility to come here in two weeks. But at least I’ve got such message from my negotiation group, they...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said he is still hoping to land a major deal to buy advanced US military drones, saying it would be a potentially “huge’’ game-changer in the war. His comments came as he warned that Ukraine was set to be brutally pummeled by Russia by air again for the second week in a row. Zelensky argued that fusing the dramatic advancements Ukraine has made with its drone technology because of its battlefield experience against Moscow with America’s remarkable military capabilities would be “huge” and beneficial for both countries. “American technological companies, they have a lot...